


Like a Flame to the Glass

by Ephemeral_Everlast



Category: Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Genre: Canon - Movie, Dark, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ephemeral_Everlast/pseuds/Ephemeral_Everlast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who would Oz be to her? Her downfall -- that much should have been apparent from the beginning. For was not infatuation a spark, and was not scorn a much more powerful flame?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Flame to the Glass

To become the very opposite of what she stood for would be the highest form of self-betrayal. At least, that was what she had believed all of her life, that to change into anything other than who she was would lead to a horrific downfall. To want for more than who she was would be dangerous, for with power there came appetites that would not be so easily assuaged; after all, what had happened to Glinda, she who poisoned her own father to be the next in line to the Emerald City? Hers would be a cautionary tale, addled with foreboding, telling her not to get too close to the fires she seemingly commanded, lest she get burned.

Hunger, when the jaws kept salivating, was a cruel mistress to continue to feed.

And if there was one truth Theodora knew to be absolute, it was that she had to stand for something, even if it was only the way she ground her heels into the fringes of neutrality. She was on neither side for that reason: she merely wished to oversee what was taking place, step in when necessary, and above all, find the one who could reclaim peace in a world that was so overwrought with collusion and distrust.

To become anything other than who she was would lead to a transition that she was ill-prepared for. It would be to turn her back on everything she knew to be certain and dependable in her world. Her sister would be forced to watch as her physical form become something barely recognizable, the flesh peeling back to reveal the wickedness of her heart that was very much _there_ , even when she denied it with all of the strength she had within her spirit, for darkness dwelt even when it was not wanted. And since when did the shadow-forces listen to the innocent and desperate pleas of any being, much less that of a witch who was trying to understand her place in this world? Never.

From the skies he would come, the Wizard Oz who would take back the Emerald City, defeating the Wicked Witch and inspiring the land to believe, and from that belief, take a course of action the likes of which their land had never seen before. A revolution that would stir the very bones of man, the hearts of the creatures who soared in the skies, a change that would churn the soil, only to part it with the very breath of revival. His would be the word that would invoke such a journey of progression that would touch everyone.

She had used to lay awake at night and imagine what he would look like. Would he be tall, his silhouette a most striking beacon against the mid-morning sunlight, the soles of his feet impressing against the earth as eyes of the clearest blue would lock upon the world that would be his, smiling with the dawn? Would he have a gap between his front teeth as he acknowledged those in his company, magic sparking from his fingers in a fork of amber-gold, granting wishes and eliciting only the best in people? Would he be of tender countenance but able to meet the eyes of those in his company? Would he have a voice as powerful and booming as the thunder that rolled from the hills, unleashing a soothing rain to the grasses that were sorely needed during the dry season?

Who would he be to her she could not help but wonder; Oz, surely, but what else?

Her downfall; that was who he was to be to her, the one device that would urge her forward, past the reflection that she feared on those cold nights where not even kneeling in the hearth of her fire would warm her skin. For being one who wielded her orange-gold flames so easily, to know of true warmth and the heat it could grant her was another consideration entirely.

Wizards would touch many in their lives, surely, for with their magic came the inevitability of a higher calling, a deep-rooted sense of purpose that would urge them onward, past their world and into the next, slipping between the mesh of what was possible and surely improbable and creating something that would spurt up and over, delighting and appeasing all those who bore witness to those miracles.

Miracles, she knew now, were merely tricks. Humans believed what they wanted, mortals held on to some suspended belief, that way they could have something to help them in their world where they knew such truths as what did not boil in their veins, the magic that they did not possess. 

Perhaps that was why she had been so angry all throughout her childhood: the thought that others did not see as clearly as she did now, the vision that would grant so many the clarity that they needed to uplift them from the world that they were in, and the world that they would know once they let the vision guide them. 

Perhaps that was why sometimes at the breakfast table, she fought to still her tongue against any venom-laced words that she could create with a curl of her tongue, a click of her teeth. A word against her sister would grant her liberation, would show her elder that she was _not_ someone that needed looking after, that she did _not_ need to be anything other than herself, anything other than who she was…

A fine thought, a beautiful one, drenched in the waters of naivete though it was. Long had she lived staring up at the sunlight that danced upon the surface of the water, refreshed and buoyed by her own faith, that there would be someone who might be able to understand her, some faceless savior that came to her in her dreams, holding her hand in the moonlight and assuring her that by simply being who she was, she was perfect.

That man, that notion had never arrived. She thought he had, but oh what a lie she had believed, upon a forked tongue of the trickster that knew not when to still its blackened edge. One who claimed that she was but an angel, drifting down the hill to meet him at the water’s edge, that very same water that had choked her all of her life with seeming-perennial truths, inspiring peace for bedtime, solace during the twilight hours, and joy even when she was not getting along with her sister. 

Witches were not taken kindly to in the land of Oz; there were many that had become Wicked, who had allowed themselves to fall against the balance, only to caress the darkness with their newly-endowed talons, cackling madly as they conjured and conspired against one another in the dead of night. 

Witches were not taken kindly to in the land of Oz; they were not tinkers, they were not farmers, they were not Munchkins. They simply _were_ , beings of magic, conjurers of the extraordinary, those who could stir greatness or madness in the bones of those who they became acquainted with. They were not like anyone else, and those who were considered outsiders in a land that had to fall into some category, into an echelon that was already provided were given one of two options: provoke goodness or fall into darkness, grasping at tendrils of light to grapple onto as their world dissolved beneath their feet. 

But this Theodora could not accept, the stereotype incensing her. All could not simply be black or white; there had to be gray matter somewhere, some partial in-between that would grant all those in her company the sweetness of tandem, the ability to balance the world and the abilities she had been given. There was a way to control her temper, there was a way to accept who she was, there was a way to remain innocent, her days filled with times in the sun and the bell-flowers that chimed with sweet notes that urged her to have a merry spring in her step, down and over the yellow-brick road. 

To invest such belief…oh, how very like a child she had been, how desperately she had clung to something that had never existed. A fake, an impostor, a cheat who had danced with Evanora for hours it seemed, granting her the very same music box…a betrayer, a traitor, a _coward_.

And so she had burned, her tears becoming liquid hot on her cheeks, scarring her for the remainder of her life, her reflection revealing the weaknesses she had tried so very, very hard to conceal all throughout her childhood and early womanhood. Had _he_ granted all the woman in his company wooden boxes with figures that danced around and around, spinning forever, forever _caught_ in a web…

Caught, _trapped_ …held, _bound_ …

_No. No. No._

That would not be her, that would _never_ be her. She wanted oblivion, thirsted for it like the intensity of a hunger that neither succulent meat nor filling drink could grant her. And there it dangled, that sweet void in the cradle of her sister’s palm, the one that had been tricked also…

Yes, he had tricked Evanora also…and with a bite, one bite that would cure all pain, all heartache…

So trusting was she that her jaws knew the sweet meat of the fruit before she could allow for the seeds of doubt to germinate, so devoted was she to knowing the end of her anguish that the glisten of juice that swirled down her throat came much faster than anticipated, digesting into her stomach with a singular drop. The transformation began then, buckling her muscles as she collapsed by the fire, begging her sister for an answer as to what was happening to her, as to what had been done.

The withering of her heart, the change from who she once was, sacrificed for what she would become…

And that made her toss her head back, black talons clicking as she knew true freedom, the liberation that cast off her once sun-kissed guise, comprising soft flesh and gentle curves for indelicate angles and apple-green skin, hideous as her sister had claimed. 

Good. Let him _stare_ at what he made her. Let the Great and Powerful Oz _gaze_ upon what his deceit had created. 

Let him be as _burned_ as she had.

She would get him; she would tear his heart from his chest and devour it between her teeth.

Maybe then, she would know what love felt like, hot and thick on her tongue.

Just like a lapping of flame that she governed, that she would know for certain: the knowledge of her vengeance, her defiance that she had always been too terrified to act upon. Fear; there was no such construct any longer. 

Only her wrath, her scalding rage. 

For what would wicked things need for love? No need at all.

To become the very opposite of what she stood for would be the highest form of self-betrayal she had once thought; how wrong she had been, wrong about everything.

But self-berating herself was unbecoming of who she would be; after all, remorse could not touch her any longer.

How _freeing_ ; how _damning_.  
~-~-~  
 _…I watch this city burn_  


_These passions slowly smoldering_

_A lesson never learned_

_Only violence…_

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely adored Theodora, and I wanted something post-Oz to pour my feels into, and this was created as consequence of such a character. There might very well be more from me for this character, for I enjoyed her story quite a bit.


End file.
